Tapping for Emotional Freedom

Who knew way back then about the real benefits of Tapping?

I’ve been fooling around with the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), or “Tapping” as it is being called by more and more people, for several years. I’ve been able to get myself through some pretty tough times with it, once I got past the “silliness” of tapping various points on my head and body while I said some statements out loud. But I never did it on a regular basis, and I didn’t experiment with listening to different experts take me through their particular tapping routines. I guess you could say I was a tapping dilettante.  I believed in it, I did it when I was in trouble, but I didn’t talk much about it to people who might look askance at me when I tried to explain it.

Pieces of Fluff

All this changed when I decided to make the commitment to fully participate in the 2011 Worldwide Online Tapping Summit in February. I tapped faithfully every day with the two daily experts, and a funny thing happened. As I experienced each person’s approach to tapping, I began to learn what worked best for me. And as I tapped along with them, little pieces of fluff that had been stuck in my subconscious, waiting for just the right moment to spring out and attack me — well, they just seemed to disappear.

Mind Blowing

And then there were two truly mind blowing experiences — one after a tapping session about half-way through the Summit and one during a tapping session near the end of the Summit. I suddenly “got” on a very deep level that I had a choice about all this, pardon me, crap I was letting abide in my subconscious. I have spent many years and many dollars dealing with all this crap – too many modalities to list here. And progress has certainly been made. But down deep, I was still longing for some miracle that would allow me to release this deeply buried belief that I was, after all, damaged goods, and nothing I could do would ever change that.

Well, guess what — I was wrong.  I experienced something that is a bit difficult to describe, but since I’m a writer I’ll give it a try. What happened was that a thought that was so strong it pushed everything else aside said to me very clearly, “This stuff about being damaged goods is just crap. You can choose to let it go.”

Becoming Truly Free

The first time this happened was after a tapping session. I was sitting on my comfy blue couch in my office, looking out the windows at the beautiful landscape of the valley below us. That thought came to me, and then suddenly the light in the room turned very bright. I felt the immense power of my thought all over my body in a tingling fashion, not unlike some experiences I have had in deep meditation. And I had a Knowing that this was true and that this would change my life in the way that I had been seeking for so many years.

The second experience occurred during a tapping session with Nick Ortner a few days later.  There was something about the way he approached it — or maybe it was just that I had picked up so many pieces from all the other experts and it all came together right then.  Instead of just standing there looking out my window, tapping along with him, I suddenly had that deep Knowing once again. The light in my office became very bright again. And I heard my thought clearly say — “This crap is over. You are free.”

Tapping, Then and Now

So, it is now two days later as I write this post, including a picture of myself as a little girl dressed for my tap recital, a picture I always hated because I was too skinny, I wasn’t as good at tapping as the other girls, I wasn’t pretty enough compared to my friends — all that stuff that has been so deeply embedded in me since I was a very young girl and my father filled my head with all this propaganda. I’ve always envied other women who could put up pictures of themselves as little girls, while my shame at not being good enough or pretty enough kept me locked in a prison of my own making.

As I said earlier, I have worked on this and many other issues for decades. It is only because of all this work that I am still here on the planet. But, doggone it, I was really getting tired of working so hard and still dragging this crap around with me — and I felt like I was running out of time. Maybe this is why I decided to really commit to the tapping this time.

Now, I understand that I will still need to continue to tap — there are all sorts of things still lying around to be dealt with, not just by me but by any regular human being who is not damaged goods.  But now I know I can tap on anything that comes up with the confidence that I can find it, tap it, and watch it dissolve like a sugar cube in water.

Out of the Closet

So – I am finally coming out of the Tapping closet, like so many other people are doing now – because I finally know what they know – this tapping stuff works, big time.

Update on January 18th, 2013:

I wrote this post on March 4th, 2011.  I’ve continued to use Tapping to achieve higher levels of integration and personal growth. The new 2013 Tapping Summit will begin soon, so I encourage you to take a look at it. This interview by Nick Ortner with Dr. Mark Hyman demonstrates how far Tapping has come as an accepted method in Functional Medicine. I hope you will set aside some time to watch this — I found it fascinating!

Interview with Dr. Mark Hyman, NYT bestselling author and leading practitioner of Functional Medicine

Tagged as: EFT, Tapping